Bittersweet
by Tantrus
Summary: When all you can promise isnt enough, all you can give has to be good enough. Kataang Raiders!


The taste of iron was strangely familiar but wholly unnerving. Aang hadnt counted on negotiations with the rebel group going so sour so fast, and when the first stone hit him he had been unprepared. Katara's skepticism served her far better just then, tendons that had been itching to react for hours leapt into action and her anger rained down in waves on the men before them.

It was Aang's decision to save the life of the rebel who had struck the first blow, and that nearly cost him his own. The gang of miscreants had been reckless, rushing at the avatar and the waterbending master headlong as soon as the fight began. They were a ragtag group of misplaced vagabonds, their villages burned, their minds and hearts closed to all but anger. With hard eyes they had demanded aid , but when Aang, Katara and the handful of good samaritans showed up to help, they were met with open hostility. It became apparent that the folk blamed Aang and Zuko as much or more than Ozai for the destruction of their land. After all, years had passed since the new firelord's coronation and things had yet to return to any semblance of normality. Aang promised to help them, bent them shelters from earth, and a meeting time was set up.

That had been in the morning. It was sunset now, and Aang lay against a sack of grain with the taste of iron lingering in his mouth. Bandages were wrapped expertly around his chest, almost pure white now that the blood had stopped pushing through them. He wondered casually if he'd have another large scar when this was all over, but he knew it had been worth it. Aang's unwillingness to let even an enemy come to harm struck a chord in the crowd. Shortly after Katara had cleaned the shards of rock out of his flesh, the others in their group were eating shoulder to shoulder with the assailants. All things considered, Aang felt things had worked out. Mostly.

Just then, Katara pushed open the heavy canvas tent flap, a bowl of soup in hand.

Her eyes were red ringed, her hair was wild and little twigs clung to parts of it. There were a few damp spots on her sleeves where he suspected she'd had to wash out fresh blood in the nearby stream. It was the set of her jaw that caught him. She was angry, hard as she tried not to show it.

"I brought you some food". She said, setting it down a comfortable distance away from him.

"Katara-" he started, but she cut him off as she bent to check his bandages.

"How does your chest feel?" She said, eyeing a spot of red over his heart on the otherwise clean bandages.

Aang sighed. "I'm ok." It wasnt untrue. Even as a girl, Katara had been a good healer. Aang had given her lots of chances to practice.

"I'm lucky to have you" he said, placing his hand over the hers as she checked his bandages. He owed her his life twice over, and that was only counting the critical physical injuries she'd mended. He didnt know what the score would be if he added in the myriad other things she'd done for him over the years, but he suspected he would be trying to repay her for the rest of his life. At the very least.

Katara froze and stared into his eyes, her expression a mixture of anger and sorrow. She'd spent the last few hours trying to convince herself that Aang's injuries were less serious than they had seemed, that he would have been hurt but ok on his own. The whole experience reminded her too much of the hell she went through trying to bring him back from the dead on that accursed ship during the war. If Katara hadnt allready been on her knees, she might have fallen when he spoke. "Aang" she said with a slight quaver in her voice. "Dont say that."

"I would have killed him, Aang. If you hadnt lived,"

Her voice grew stronger, and her fingers clenched, but her body sunk into Aang. It hurt a little but he didnt care. She pressed the side of her face and both hands into his chest and he held her as she spoke.

"Losing you is.."

Katara's fingers clenched, and the drying blood in the bandages over Aang's heart mixed with hot tears that he felt rather than saw.

"I cant lose anyone else."

"Katara.."

"No, Aang! I was so afraid you wouldn't come back, and when you did I let my guard down and," Katara paused, and shifted slightly in Aang's lap to turn her eyes on his face. They were eyes that remembered a bloodshot sky, a missing love, a mad tyrant, embers on the wind.

"I let you in, Aang. I'd been fighting so hard not to admit it, but,"

Katara's fist unclenched, clenched again and she turned her head away for a moment. They both knew what she was trying to say.

"I know I cant ask you to choose me over the world, but just this once...I want to. So, so badly."

Aang didnt trust himself to speak. She hadnt said anything he hadnt known or guessed, but it didnt make it sting less. Idealism that every other Avatar he'd spoken with wrote off as foolish had nearly cost him his life, but she'd be the one left behind. His throat clenched around the words he tried to form. He owed her more than this. More than a life of threat assessments and dry rations, angry villagers and petty nobles. More than he could give.

"I want to" Aang said, barely above a whisper. "Every day, I want to choose you. I want you. Us. Always."

Hands clasped and positions shifted. Katara looked him straight in the face, willing him to continue. She was close enough to feel the rumble of his voice in his chest, the catch in his words as he tried to speak. She wanted to ask him when a time would come when they could be selfish, or how many times she'd have to pick up the pieces and bend him back together. But she didn't. Instead, she waited.

And that was when he kissed her. Or started to. They were so close already that when they came together in a tangle of dirt and sweat and the bittersweet taste of blood, there was little room left for 'what ifs'. At that moment all that mattered was the sentiments they exchanged, desperate conversations and sweeping declarations of feeling penned in friction. Aang's chest stung, and he was breathless faster than he should have been, but didn't care. He chose her over the pain, chose her whenever he could.

Hands gripped tightly to flesh, combing over every inch of their range as if every finger painted a spot that harm could not reach. The sack of dry rice Aang has been bracing against began to slowly shift and fall under their weight. Katara soon found herself lying atop Aang rather than just sitting in his lap. Neither position was exactly innocent, but even when that occurred to her she did not for a moment pause. She realized long ago that he'd always been in her heart, and if she had to wait for him until the world was truly at peace...she would do it. She would be there by his side, his comrade and more. It wasn't a choice. When the gates had opened, something had been unleashed between them that was more powerful than either could grasp.

It was with these thoughts distantly in mind that Katara decided not to let up. Hot breaths came ragged from their mouths whenever one of them was forced to come up for air. Aang was slower on the uptake, but when he realized his beloved was grinding against his hips, and that he had been bucking into it... he managed to sputter out her name in lieu of a proper question. Katara answered by shifting all her weight onto her hips and continuing to rock achingly slow against him. Quickly she removed her shirt, tunic and then the bindings underneath, discarding them afterwards as though they had been too hot to hold for long. Her hair, twigs and all, hung behind her and around her, framing her. Aang was about to force himself up to her face, but she pinned him with a feather light touch to his chest. He found her guiding his hands to her hips instead, easing her black pants and white bindings down as far as they would go before she had to move to finish the job.

It wasn't the first time he'd seen her naked. It wasn't the first time he'd felt the hot stare of her lust, seen her come apart at the seams. They were young and in love, and they carried the weight of the world on their shoulders. His hands had become as well acquainted with every crevice of her body as hers had with his..but this was different. There was a charge to the air, a weight to her stare that had been absent before. As she crawled catlike over him, she eased his pants down. Slowly at first, almost as though asking permission, and then deliberately, she stripped him of his battle-torn britches and small clothes. All the while he hungrily drank the sight of her, sought what contact with her he could reach with his hands. As he helped her by kicking off the last clinging shred of fabric, he once again tried to rise. Katara once again forced him down.

Aang shivered as she moved up him, dragging teeth and tongue up his chest, only stopping to avoid disturbing a bandage here or a bruise there. When she made it up far enough, Aang jumped at the chance to repay her in kind. He pulled her up farther, and with a slightly bemused look from Katara, farther still. When finally he had her where he needed her, he began to pour out his gratitude in the form of a long deep kiss to her sex. Katara groaned and gripped her lover's head in desperation. Before too long, she pulled back and Aang looked up at her, confused. She flowed back down like water, kissed the questions from his lips while guiding him inside her. It didn't happen fast, but if it took thrice as long and he'd had thrice the warning, Aang's heart would still have been beating hard against his ribs.

It was like drowning in her. He could feel her pulse pounding through her silky depths and for a moment it was all he could do not to crack from the joy of it all. Before long, they picked up the rhythm they had started in the beginning. Their breath came ragged and short, and just as Aang felt the familiar pressure building up inside him, Katara slowed near to a stop. Her movements deliberate, like what they had been doing but at half tempo and far more pressure. It was all Aang could do to hold back, once he gathered that was what she wanted.

Katara ached to feel the full weight of him bearing down onto and into her, ached to have him blended as completely with her as possible. More. She shuddered as she pressed into him, his lean muscles pressing into all the right places as his member pulsed dangerously hard inside her. She wanted this to last. They'd come close before, and she'd pushed him over the edge enough times to be able to read him now. Pressing hard onto him, they both tried and failed to slake their thirsts in a series of desperate kisses.

Finally, a line was crossed and they could stand it no longer. Aang rolled over, holding her flat to his chest, and Katara let him. She twined her legs with his and ran her teeth up his neck as Aang started to forge a new rhythm between her legs. He crashed into her like the tide hitting rocky shores, and she surged, rebounded back to meet him. There was no way they could get close enough, no matter how many ways they tried to position themselves. There was all the time they could need, but yet there was not enough. Never enough. The staccato beat of flesh against flesh was punctuated only by ragged breathing and strangled cries that died on one another's skin. Katara was first to feel orgasm rip through her. The way it started was familiar, but as her muscles clenched and spasmed around Aang's length and as he continued to pump into her, she realized she was confronting a whole different animal. It tore down her spine and reverberated around her hips to her toes and back before exploding with the force of a breaking dam. Her hands clenched and unclenched as she twitched around him, amazed at how long it had drawn out. Not too long after she came, Aang found the experience contagious. He looked at her for permission, unsure what he would do if she denied him. Katara responded by wrapping more tightly about his waist, riding him from below with wild abandon. Drenched in sweat and wholly unprepared, Aang felt his whole body contract and twitch in concert. His blood pounded audibly through his arteries, the sound of it mixed with the small grunts that managed to escape his throat around the rasping of his breath. Then, it hit him. He came harder than he'd ever thought possible, covered in sweat with the taste of old blood and sex on his lips as Katara held his quaking frame.

When it was all over and they had regained their breath, Aang stroked the side of Katara's face gingerly. He'd always imagined their first time would be different than how this had played out, but everything he'd dreamt of paled in comparison to the beautiful reality underneath him. Katara, likewise, ran her hands around the skin of Aang's back. She had no regrets. Holding him, being held by him, here in the afterglow..it was all she wanted. Soon, they would need to change his now soiled bandages. Eat. Give orders. Don the mantle of the Avatar and the First Waterbender of the Southern Tribe... but..

For now..

just for now.. there was no world but the world inside the tent; with the forgotten bowl of soup, the bags of stored grain and the loose dirt floor, and her Aang.

_hope you all enjoyed :) For those of you who worry about such things; lets just assume stress is a good contraceptive this time eh? Edited because I realized that A; typing on an unfamiliar keyboard brings typos aplenty and B; typing late at night doesn't make it any better. Thanks for the reviews so far! 3 _


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